One 911 caller said he saw him on Houston Street, and another says the man actually approached him and asked him to break the cuffs.

Drashaydrian Montell Hunter was in the custody of a Van police officer when he got away on November 30. Police Chief John Brown says events that led up Hunter's arrest may have overwhelmed the officer.

The night before Hunter's arrest, Van Police responded to a wreck on I-20 involving a stolen vehicle.

"While the officer was investigating that and recovering that vehicle, he received a call from dispatch in regards to an attempted carjacking," says Brown.

The officer on duty assumed the two incidents were related but, after searching for Hunter for about an hour and a half, it was the officer that came in the next morning who found and arrested him.

“The name and the information he gave came back that he was a convicted felon,” says Brown. “So, he was charged with a felon in possession of a firearm."

Hunter initially gave his brother's name to police but, since both men have prior felony convictions, the name mix-up did not change the way the arrest was handled.

Police say, Hunter was injured and requested medical attention. The officer took him to a Tyler hospital where he was treated for a broken nose.

“He handcuffed him in the front, the officer got distracted for a second, and the person jumped up and ran from emergency room back toward South Baxter,” says Brown. “The officer may have been sorting through all those things that happened in his mind, so it's easy to get distracted."

There are currently three warrants for Hunter's arrest.Copyright 2017 KLTV. All rights reserved.